of it can no longer sustain it, the white dwarf now an ember of itself, a stellar remnant, shedding the last of its heat into space, cooling and fading and compressing until its surface is so close to the centre, the beginning so close to its end, gravity at the surface is 100,000 times that of the Earth and light has to fight an uphill struggle to escape, and because light always travels at the same speed, it shows this loss of energy in increasing wavelengths, the light redshifting. Red, white.
One hundred trillion things.
According to a rabbi writing in fourteenth-century Spain, the Talmud states that the father ‘contributes the semen of the white substance’ that makes up the bones and sinews in a body, the nails, the brain, the white of the eye. The mother contributes the semen of the red substance that is flesh, hair, blood and the black of the eye. God’s contribution is the soul, but it is only on loan. The red and the white stuff dies with you, but the soul is up for grabs, or the Rightful Owner calls it in, no interest. It depends how you look at it.
In alchemy, red and white are the colours of man and bride and they ought to be together, masculine and feminine, in one same person, between two people, in Nature itself, it is the best state of affairs, the union of the opposites as they call it, with far-reaching consequences otherwise, dark times, wastelands, the lot. What a palaver. This was Merlin’s subject also, red and white, his Grail, a mission that pressed him so hard in his role as Lightbringer, he simply fell apart, going through a very bad spell of lurking in the forest and acting up, more like a wild animal than a bringer of light, everybody said so. And then his sister rescues him, building him a house in the forest, a house like an observatory, with seventy windows and doors so he can indulge his passions for astronomy and prophecy, closing himself up, as Blake might say, seeing all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern. His sister does all the cooking and she pours the wine and Merlin teaches her the fine arts of astronomy and prophecy until, he tells her, she is his match.
Merlin does not forget about the Grail, he does not forget about Perceval, a knight who dreams much in his sleep, Merlin appearing to him in many forms, sometimes as a hermit all dressed in white.
‘I’ll never drink milk again. Never.’ That’s what I say to Jude.
‘Yeh, I know. You’ll feel better soon,’ says Jude.
‘When?’
Jude does not answer me. You don’t get a lot of answers from Jude who is nearly my twin, and hardly ever when you expect one. You could ask him a question and get an answer some three days later, when you are riding bikes together or coming back from doing a shopping message for Mum. I am used to it, but some types are spooked by it. Not me.
We are reading comics. Well, his is not really a comic though it has little pictures in rows running across the page in separate boxes just like in regular comics and is the same shape and size as the comics I like most, such as Victor, Valiant and Tiger but these are largely to do with war and sporting prowess and not so full of special knowledge as Jude’s, which is called World of Wonder and to which he has a subscription, or a prescription as Harriet would say. It’s quite special to have a subscription. Jude’s comic has ‘Weiss’ written in the top left-hand corner and he goes to collect it each week at the newsagent. Whoa. I would like a subscription to Victor, or to Commando, which comes in a very nice book shape and has long stories in it featuring commandos having hard knocks before defeating Nazis who throw their hands in the air and go Kamerad! but neither of these comics are all that serious, so I only get them once in a while, for a treat, or else Jude steals one for me, sliding it away with his World of Wonder, or just walking out with it under his arm all casual, like he paid for it of course, of course. I’ve seen him do it and he is very good, but I am not witness to all his thefts any more, being so stark-eyed watching him, that nowadays Jude makes me stand outside. He mainly steals for me and Ben, comics, sweets, that sort of thing.
I am reading a story in Jude’s World of Wonder about stars, etc. It has pictures of olden times scientists, Sir Isaac Newton and René Descartes, a man with a lot of curly hair like a girl, plus Einstein, and I’ve definitely heard of him, and also Galileo, a man from the seventeenth century in a big beard and a wee hat resembling a yarmulke, a hat worn by my dad and the boys on Passover, but not by me, due to sex and me being the wrong sex for nice hats. I don’t think Galileo was Jewish at all, it is just an Italian-type hat, and quite fashionable in olden times, as I suppose.
‘Jude?’ I say. ‘Light year. What is that?’
Jude is reading the latest World of Wonder and he is lying on his back holding his magazine in the air not far from his face, sometimes switching hands to avoid pins and needles, turning pages and breathing in and out without any palaver, no shuffling and rustling or unnecessary movements. Jude never flaps about the way I do, it’s nice to watch, how he is, how he moves. Answering my question might disturb his whole set-up, but I ask anyway, he always hears me, he’ll remember, and three days later, here we are walking home from the fishmonger.
Mum has rung up Mr Jarvis and Mr Jarvis has all the fish ready for Jude and me. I refuse to carry it, not having a big thing for fish, especially slimy fishies with heads still on and staring-right-at-you eyes, no thanks. We made a pit stop at the newsagent and Jude has stolen a packet of fruit gums, my favourite. Wait outside, he said.
‘Light year,’ he says, stepping out of the shop. ‘The space light can travel in a year. It’s distance, not time.’
This is hard. ‘Oh. Do I need to know this, is it important?’
Jude frowns as we stroll along and he takes another fruit gum from the roll. He is thinking. The fruit gum is red, my topmost favourite, so he passes it on and eats the next one, which is yellow and also pretty good if you are not in the mood for red. ‘Yeh. Important.’
This means I have work to do and will need to go to Ben for more information, Ben who is patient and can do a lot of talking all at once without getting fed up. Suddenly Jude chucks our sweets right over the fence by the pavement we are walking home along.
‘Hey, Jude.’ Jude does strange things and if you get upset, his forehead bunches up and blue veins show at the temples, like railroad tracks. So I say it quiet. Hey, Jude.
‘Too many sweets. Bad for you.’
OK, Jude.
So that is one example of how long it can take to get an answer from my brother, three days in this case and something I do not mind because Jude is great and nearly my twin and it is why I don’t really expect him to tell me straight off when I will feel better, what does he mean by soon, and what is a light year, on the day we had the milk race and lay about reading comics, feeling mighty throw-uppy and pathetic.
I am in Ben and Jude’s room, I am lying on Ben’s bed, which is the top bunk of the bunk beds and Jude is down below on his bunk. He never wanted the top one because of all the movement involved, going up and down the ladder. I am crazy for going up and down the ladder, it’s like being an officer in a submarine in World War II. Cool. Jude and I have used the bunk beds for a lot of military situations, as a submarine, a Roman galley in wars against Egyptians, a tent in the desert war against the Afrika Korps and a hut in a Nazi prison camp before we dig our way out. We are happy that Mum and Dad bought the bunk beds and sometimes I even get to sleep in here with Jude if Ben is staying over at a friend’s house, though this is upsetting for Harriet, who will ignore me completely the next morning, building a wall of cereal boxes around her place so she won’t have to look at me, but spending the whole breakfast time peeking through the cracks and then quickly shutting her eyes and turning her head away if I happen to catch her, signifying her great disgust regarding me, and how I am the most boring and stupid person she has ever known. But I like
